Sculptor's Cave

Lossiemouth, United Kingdom

The Sculptor's Cave is a sandstone cave on the south shore of the Moray Firth near the small settlement of Covesea, between Burghead and Lossiemouth in Moray. It is named after the Pictish carvings incised on the walls of the cave near its entrances. There are seven groups of carvings dating from the 6th or 7th century, including fish, crescent and V-rod, pentacle, triple oval, step, rectangle, disc and rectangle, flower, and mirror patterns, some very basic but others more sophisticated.

The cave is 20m deep and 13.5m wide with a 5.5m high roof and can be entered by two parallel 11m long passages, each 2-3m wide. It lies at the base of 30m high cliffs and is largely inaccessible at high tide.

The cave was first excavated between 1928 and 1930 by Sylvia Benton, who discovered evidence of two main periods of activity on the site: the first during the late Bronze Age, and the second during the late Roman Iron Age, between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.

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Address

Covesea, Lossiemouth, United Kingdom
See all sites in Lossiemouth

Details

Founded: 6th century AD
Category: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in United Kingdom

More Information

en.wikipedia.org

Rating

4/5 (based on Google user reviews)

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User Reviews

Skelly Skelly (7 months ago)
Terrible road to get to it through a field
Laur Sage B. (9 months ago)
Lovely place and no people. We even saw dolphins x Make sure to check tide times before going down to the beach since it floods
Jane Reid (9 months ago)
A bit of a steep descent to the beach but the caves were fascinating. The beach itself is beautiful.
Bryce Mcgregor (2 years ago)
Decided to walk from Lossiemouth to Hopeman, about 7 miles. Amazing day, sun out during most of day. After leaving Lossie, great sandy part of the walk. Come to the Covesea Lighthouse and this and other caves and rocks. More lively sandy beaches then past a small golf course and up on the top of cliffs, some lovely beaches with great rock formations and caves. Great walk on to Hopeman. Lovely place to sit overlooking the harbour area. Headed back to lossie on bus. Would recommend the walk, although we did have great weather for November. ??
Insurgencey Blight (2 years ago)
Walking from silver sands it's a long walk over damp rocks and a race against the tide not for the feint of heart a great challenge but only accessible at low tide amazing historical with graffiti nearly 60 years old very little modern graffiti as its too far out for a teenagers drinking site
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